Editor's Note

The Charge

Sleeves!!!

Opening Statement

There is always more to any sibling rivalry than the label implies. By its
very nature, familial enmity comes from how individuals, united by blood,
determine their place in the overall unit's biological pecking order. Birthright
plays a role, since the sequence of lineage creates automatic roles, as well as
automatic foes. The eldest is always put upon, the youngest babied and embraced.
Standing in the middle are the children who form a kind of spiraling nucleus of
issues and ideals. Sometimes, these kids are completely adjusted. At other
instances, they represent a parent's worst nightmare. When the dynamic becomes a
dichotomy, with only one child on either end of the age spectrum, the adversity
has the potential to become even more potent. For Kay, life has been a
substantial struggle, an attempt to escape from the shadow of her splashy
sibling while also avoiding the chaos her sister creates. Sweetie, on the other
hand, is humanity unbound. Unrestricted and unrestrained, she is the apple of
her father's eye and the bane of her mother's smothered existence. Like a great
war in which battle lines are clearly drawn and convictions are made clear,
someone will not survive this latest flare-up of kinfolk. Part of the majesty of
Jane Campion's first film is the inevitable uprising. Channeled through her own
unique cinematic perspective, Sweetie becomes a primer for all manner of
familial misunderstandings and individual misgivings.

Facts of the Case

So superstitious that she avoids cracks in the concrete and seeks the regular
advice of a psychic, Kay is convinced that co-worker Louis is the man she's
meant to be with. After all, the tea leaves said so. Thus they begin a 13-month
courtship that moves from passionate to passionless. Eventually, Kay is sleeping
in another part of the house and Louis is lamenting the loss of his sex life.
One night, out of the blue, Kay's out-of-control sister Dawn—otherwise
known as "Sweetie"—breaks into her house. An obviously disturbed
young woman given to frequent inappropriate outbursts and random acts of
psychotic selfishness, her presence places even more pressure on the couple's
relationship. Kay wants her parents to do something about Sweetie, but they are
going through a rough patch themselves, and Dad ends up at Kay's as well. Soon,
Sweetie is back to her own tricks—monopolizing her father's attention and
disrespecting her sister. While dreaming of becoming famous (as a child, Dawn
was pampered and positioned to be a performer), Sweetie systematically seduces
everyone around her. It will take a trip out West, and an unexpected tragedy, to
finally release the family from Sweetie's spoiled brat grip once and for
all.

The Evidence

Sweetie is a strange experience, a movie made up almost exclusively
out of hints and suggestions. Nothing is ever discussed outright in this
amazingly nuanced narrative, and issues that appear to be boiling below the
surface are simply allowed to simmer and soak into everything around them.
Obviously, as portrayed by Australian auteur Jane Campion in her first feature
film, this is a family hiding a mountain of damaging dysfunction behind their
dry, sometimes even dopey, demeanor. Whether it's just a simple case of one
child's uncontrolled id crashing into the rest of her family's slighted and
submerged egos, or something far more sinister and suspect, the result is a
ticking human time bomb waiting to insert itself into situations and simply
implode. As a tale of people picking each other apart for the sake of their own
sense of security, Sweetie represents one of the most amazing family
dramas every delivered to celluloid. But there is more to the movie than just a
sizable sibling spat with parents unable to control their progeny. In the hands
of Campion, fresh from success in the short-film arena, this is art animated, a
purposefully arcane cinematic vision made meaningful and important by the way in
which this skilled filmmaker positions her lens.

While many will see Sweetie as the catalyst, the crazy deluded sister whose
extreme case of angry arrested adolescence leads the rest of her kin towards all
kinds of dire decisions, it is actually Kay who plays the mechanism for change
more times than not. Always willing to challenge her parents, but never able to
find the words to express her emotions, she is all outbursts and whining, pure
pain pouring out of her horribly wounded heart. While she is clearly unlike her
sibling in outward appearance, inward ability or perplexed personality, she is
equally adept at making the familial world revolve around her. Sweetie simply
acts out, making her demands as apparent as possible. When they are met, she is
only semi-satisfied. She pushes for more, and when she doesn't get it, tends to
revert right back to her spoiled square one. Kay, on the other hand, is skilled
at the silent, suffering approach to approval. She wants everyone to acknowledge
her sister's interpersonal deficiencies and wears her many tiny triumphs as
mental medals to prove her priggish superiority. To argue that one or the other
is the only causational component is foolish. Both are on paths of stagnant
self-destruction and it will take an act outside their control to create a break
that will either free them or forever lock the family in a cycle of denial.

Something is being avoided here, and all arrows point to Father, Sweetie,
and some manner of unnatural attraction. That Campion doesn't come right out and
scream "child abuse" or "incest" is one of Sweetie's
more intriguing—and irritating—elements. We don't like our issues to
be open-ended, without clear-cut indicators of side, morality, and meaning. When
Kay spies her sister giving "Daddy" a bath, it is an unsettling scene.
The sexual aspect is also amplified by both characters' approach to physicality.
Kay is completely cut off from her boyfriend Louis. Sweetie will sleep with
anyone—including her sister's limp lover. So it's not hard to accept that
sometime in the easily-dismissed distant past, Sweetie was a victim of some kind
of unhealthy relative relationship. But maybe that's not true. Perhaps her overt
carnality is just a recent development, a way of dealing with a life overloaded
with disappointment. After all, Sweetie lives in a perpetual dream of fame and
privilege, a fantasy fostered almost exclusively by her dad. So it could be that
her present state of mind creates the perception of childhood trauma, while the
truth is actually more complicated and less scandalous than we apparently want
it to be.

There are also obvious hints of mental illness with both sisters. Kay has
developed such a hatred for trees (naturally, Sweetie and Dad share many a
private moment in the family tree house) that she actually attacks the poor
defenseless plants with a kind of insular insanity. Her sister, on the other
hand, is a "Goth girl, interrupted" mess. Fashions forged out of
broken bits of cloth and cut-up dresses, eyes smeared with dark circles of
black, Sweetie suggests the kind of kid who has spent decades trying to escape
who she is inside. We do get a chance to see her as a youngster, and the
pleasantly perky ginger we witness is a shock. It's as if Campion is
purposefully playing with our perception of the character to keep any and all
possibilities about her past in play. Indeed, Sweetie is a film that
loves the notion of acuity, of how the seemingly normal can be nutty and an
inviolable vice versa. Tossing in obtuse sequences where unusual imagery is
intercut into the narrative, and a use of angles that often suggest something
slightly askew existing just out of frame, Campion's compositions make us aware
that the images are just as important as the dialogue being delivered and the
performers providing the necessary emotional truth.

The cast here is truly amazing, doing something that few films and actors
even attempt. Campion has purposefully created individuals that walk the fine
line between empathy and ennui, likeability and loathing, and constantly causes
them to cross back and forth between the two extremes. At first, we feel this is
Kay's story, and Karen Colston does a brilliant job of getting us on her side.
Of course, the minute we arrive at some manner of understanding, Kay contorts
and confronts our feelings for her. Similarly, Sweetie is a cruel comic
contradiction who would be pitiable if she weren't such a sensational slag.
Geneviève Lemon, required to do most of her acting with her eyes and
remarkable bulk, finds the sad soul inside this spoiled sow, and manages to make
us care even as Sweetie continually makes us cringe. As a battle of will between
two wounded women, Campion sets up a kind of call and response—or better
yet, cause and effect—style of storytelling. The minute her mad bitch of a
sibling starts going off the deep end, Kay cranks up the hurt homebody routine.
The result is the film's real theme—that within each family, love and hate
become part of a tainted tug of war where nobody wins and everybody loses.

This is best highlighted in the film's three main subplots. The girls'
parents separate, and sides are instantly drawn. Mom ventures out into the
wilderness, ending up a cook for a group of Outback cowboys. Dad initially seeks
Kay for help, but we soon learn that he really needs Sweetie to feel calm and
complete. Bob, Sweetie's pick-up "producer" sex partner, also
represents the reality of the character's sense of self. Looking to the obvious
junkie for confirmation and affection, she literally drains him of life until he
is left, flat on his back and covered in coffee, in a local diner. Kay's live-in
lover Louis is a little trickier. An admirer of transcendental meditation and
spirituality, he original hooked up with his current paramour after learning
their love was fated by a fortuneteller. But his eye is constantly wandering,
from a fellow TM devotee who flaunts her tantric sex manual, to Sweetie herself,
who practically molests him on a trip to the beach. It is clear that both gals
are starved for love, needing any manner of recognition, good, bad, or
indifferent to fuel their failing sense of self.

It all rushes to a head in the final scene, a sequence that becomes a kind
of metaphysical showdown between Sweetie, her parents, her past, and her sister.
Kay is also clearly in confrontation mode, making everything that's happening
about her, her decisions, and her desire for change. On both sides of the battle
are Dad (staunchly status quo) and Mom (ready to involve the authorities for the
first time in decades). When a real outsider is tossed in—in this case, a
rascally young neighbor boy named Clayton—it crosses everyone's wires,
leading to judgments that otherwise would not be made, and results that no one
could easily have expected. The ending of Sweetie is indeed odd. It seems
to suggest that only one person was responsible for the familial unrest, when we
know very clearly that this is not true. As a matter of fact, it even goes so
far as to argue that much of the destruction foisted onto the clan could have
been avoided had certain "institutional" steps been taken beforehand.
Nothing seems really settled either. One character even envisions their life the
way it used to be, back before things got out of hand, back when things seemed
simple and pure.

By placing us in these contradictory realities, Campion creates a truly
unreal atmosphere, a cinematic sense that guarantees Sweetie turns out to
be a true motion-picture masterpiece. Riffing on references that she was hung up
on at the time (including a closing moment lifted directly out of the David
Lynch oeuvre) and purposefully framing her scenes to throw both the actors and
audience off guard, the look of this movie is simply amazing. Initially, no one
is seen straight on. We view shoes, the side of someone's face, the top of a
person's head. Then, slowly, people start to creep in towards the middle of the
compositions. By the time we get to the end, when anarchy rules the lives of
everyone involved, Campion keeps the action centered. There are also times when
blocking provides the necessary undercurrent to an otherwise ordinary scene.
While Dad is crying, Mom, Kay and Louis step out onto a vast Australian highway,
and the overwhelming vista, matched against Campion's purposeful placement of
her players (Mom up front, Kay off to one side, Louis far off in the background)
suggests everything we need to know about whose making the decisions here.

It's a stunning conceit, one that works much better than a viewer initially
imagines. Instead of making everything cold and distant, it allows elements from
outside the sequences, as well as information and emotions we've experienced
previously, to float in and permeate the action. When Sweetie is wrestling with
Clayton, we sense something unsettling. As the visual remains off in the
distance, we suddenly recall the moment where Sweetie and her father infer some
inappropriate contact and the aura of such abuse makes us instantly fear for
what will happen next. Similarly, when Louis learns the truth about the tree he
planted at the start of the couple's relationship, the lack of any outward
arguing allows us to fill in the blanks from the preceding discussions the pair
have had. In a sense, Sweetie is made up of nothing but the vaguest of
recollections, without any real reason or outright rationale for all the tension
and turmoil on hand. Sure, the main character is a harried handful, the kind of
girl child that will end up dead, drugged up, or deposited in a home for the
rest of her restless life. But that doesn't mean that Sweetie deserves such a
fate. She simply wants to share her purpose and pain with everyone. And they too
have been more than happy to channel their inner emptiness into her…just
like all families seem to do.

Continuing their wondrous 2006 winning streak, Criterion again delivers a
definitive DVD presentation. Sweetie was a low-budget entity, the
realization of a film school star's greatest artistic ambitions, and the
premiere preservationists terrific touch is felt all throughout this stellar
transfer. The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen image is immaculate, capturing
Campion's unique approach to the material with style and grace. From the amazing
locations as part of the family visit out west, to the depressing drab home that
Kay cocoons herself in, the imagery is a combination of contrasts and
colors—all of it expertly realized by Criterion's careful hand. On the
sound side, the new Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround soundtrack is equally impressive,
with the multi-channel immersion being far more effective than one might
imagine. Especially in the interior moments, where Sweetie could be up to
anything over in the next room, the spatial openness created by the mix is
absolutely first rate.

As they do with most all of their digital presentations, Criterion unearths
a wealth of added content for Sweetie that is simply astounding. The
bonus features that focus exclusively on the film provide the viewer with a
great deal of delicious DVD food for thought. First up, Campion, cinematographer
Sally Bangers, and screenwriting partner Gerard Lee settle down for a sweeping,
and rather personal, full-length audio commentary. We learn that almost all the
characters in Sweetie are actual people that Campion and/or Lee knew, and
a lot of their own romantic relationship rests in Kay and Louis's complex
coupling. Oddly enough, themes and meaning are once again missing from this
discussion. In their place is a kind of memory lane lament for the good old days
of 1989, when a fresh out of university artist could create almost anything they
wanted by merely "knowing" that they could do it. Hearing the recalled
passion possessed by Bangers especially makes this more of a confessional than a
commentary. While we'd like to learn about the production, this increasingly
interesting conversation provides ample context to Sweetie's import as a
film and as a shared experience.

It's a similar idea that weaves its way through a quaint Q&A with stars
Karen Colston and Geneviève Lemon. Looking older and far more secure than
they did 16 years ago, the pair are provocative, personable, and a little peeved
that Australian cinema wasn't considered a stepping stone to Hollywood back in
the '80s. Lemon specifically points out that it took Toni Collette and
Muriel's Wedding to give Down Under performers the license to look toward
Tinseltown for a career. As they dish dirt and giggle like school girls, the
ladies do let us in on the difficult process of making Sweetie. Neither
one really "got" it, and were flummoxed by the mixed reaction it
received at Cannes. Between this interview, the commentary, a collection of
behind the scenes photos and production stills, a new essay from Dana Polan and
a very provocative trailer, we sense how Sweetie sort of took on an
existence all its own. It was almost as if the film decided that rest of the
world needed to experience its power, and found a way to make that happen.

In addition, Campion's unique approach to film is celebrated in a 1989
conversation with film critic Peter Thompson which focuses on her work in short
subjects, and this dialogue really explains how these experiments influenced her
style. The discussion is made all the more palatable with the inclusion by
Criterion of three of the director's first mini-movies. "An Exercise in
Discipline: Peel" (9 minutes) takes on family issues once again as a
pleasant drive turns ugly when a small child won't stop dropping his fruit
peelings out the window. "Passionless Moments" (13 minutes) focuses on
the minor everyday events in people's lives. It's illuminating and very clever.
Finally, "A Girl's Own Story" (27 minutes) provides the story of three
young teens whose lives become increasingly intertwined. Showing the same
concern for character that would drive the rest of her filmmaking, this is a
fine, fully realized work. Taken in total, they argue for Campion's creative
genius, as well as her genesis from student into an artist of international
import.

Closing Statement

It's interesting to note that families who seem to get along famously are
always portrayed as hiding something inside their supposedly false façade.
On the other hand, clans that scratch at each other like fresh scabs on an open
wound are viewed as being completely in touch with their feelings. Over the
decades, domestic bliss has been blasted as the central lie in many people's
lives while the occasional raging arguments and infrequent outright abuses tend
to validate our maturity and make-up. It's an odd reality, one made even more
bizarre when you take something like Sweetie into consideration. It is
impossible to argue that what happens in this close-knit chaos is anything close
to normal, and yet more people will argue for the story's raw realism over the
sunny shine sheen of the Brady Bunch any given day. True, the media did
manipulate the notion of blood until it became bland and baseless, but unless
you lived in a ripe slice of homebound Hell, no one experiences the kind of
kinship corruption that exists between Sweetie and Kay. The truth is, nobody
ever will. Jane Campion was not out to make a reflection of real life with her
surreal sibling rivalry film. She wanted to interpret life as a series of
struggles viewed from far, far away, where the pain wouldn't be as potent and
where the end result wouldn't feel as final. She understood that there was more
to people than tantrums and trysts. All we want is attention—good, bad, or
outrageous. Thanks to this remarkable movie, consideration is what everyone
gets—Sweetie, Kay, and the audience.

The Verdict

An undeniably great film, Sweetie is hereby found not guilty by this
Court and is free to go.